The present invention relates generally to a product rationalization system and method and more particularly to a system and method for making product deletion and addition recommendations for an account's inventory.
Account managers face an ever-growing number of products to offer to their customers, but have a fixed amount of store space in which to display their products. This dilemma forces account managers to make decisions, which are often subjective, as to the best mix of products to offer their customers. These decisions have become more important than ever since recent trends show a marked increase in the number of items stocked by stores and in the number of new product lines available to be stocked, while sales per square foot of store have decreased.
Thus, the goal of most account managers is to offer an optimum mix of products that maximizes sales without requiring additional store space. One way of obtaining such an optimized mix of products is to eliminate products that are perceived as duplicates by consumers from an account's inventory while adding products that increase the account's sales volume. However, there exists no satisfactory tool that enables account managers to objectively determine which products are candidates for deletion from an account's inventory and which products are candidates for addition to the account's inventory based on all the relevant and available market information.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a product rationalization system and method for automatically and objectively determining products sold by an account that are candidates for deletion from the account's inventory.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a product rationalization system and method for automatically and objectively determining products that are candidates for addition to an account's inventory.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a product rationalization system and method for automatically and objectively determining products stocked by an account and products that are not stocked by an account that are candidates for swapping in the account's inventory.